wfn.org | ELCA Leaders Issue "Perspective" on Lutheran-Episcopal Proposal

[News News <NEWS@ELCA.ORG>]

ELCA NEWS SERVICE

July 27, 1999

ELCA LEADERS ISSUE "PERSPECTIVE" ON LUTHERAN-EPISCOPAL PROPOSAL
99-189-JB

     CHICAGO (ELCA) -- A vote on a proposed Lutheran-Episcopal full
communion agreement is "an enormously momentous decision," said five
leaders of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), who this
month sent informational statements and endorsements of the proposal to
voting members of the 1999 ELCA Churchwide Assembly.  The assembly will
be asked to approve the proposed agreement when it convenes in Denver,
Aug. 16-22.
     The five leaders are the Rev. Dennis A. Anderson, president of
Trinity Lutheran Seminary, Columbus, Ohio; the Rev. Richard L. Jeske,
Immanuel Lutheran Church, San Jose, Calif.; the Rev. E. Roy Riley Jr.,
bishop of the ELCA New Jersey Synod; the Rev. Steven L. Ullestad, bishop
of the ELCA Northeastern Iowa Synod; and the Rev. Joseph M. Wagner,
executive director of the ELCA Division for Ministry, Chicago.
     The proposed agreement, "Called to Common Mission (CCM)," is a
Lutheran revision of the proposed Concordat of Agreement, a similar
proposal for full communion with the Episcopal Church.  The Concordat
failed to achieve the required two-thirds majority at the 1997 ELCA
assembly. A full communion agreement would make possible a variety of
cooperative ministries, including exchange of clergy in ELCA and
Episcopal congregations.
     ELCA members opposed to CCM held two conferences at Mahtomedi,
Minn., earlier this year and circulated tapes and transcripts of many of
the presentations to most assembly voting members.
     "Many members of the ELCA have expressed concern that the positive
rationale for favoring CCM has not been presented to voting members of
the 1999 Denver Churchwide Assembly," the five leaders said in the
perspective's introduction. "We know that many voting members and
congregations have received mailings which oppose CCM."
     "However, we also know that an overwhelming majority of the voting
members of the 1997 Philadelphia assembly expressed their desire for
full communion with the Episcopal Church and called for a revised
proposal to be presented at Denver," they said.  It's crucial to the
ongoing ecumenical witness of the ELCA that CCM be adopted by "a strong
majority" in Denver, they added.
     The "perspective" included a series of 20 questions and answers
about CCM, information about the proposal and signed endorsements from
several former and present ELCA leaders.  It was mailed to an address
list developed "independently through appropriate contacts with each
synod," and it was funded by "private sources for the costs associated"
with the mailing, the five leaders said.
     In arguing for adoption of CCM, the perspective said it's "crucial
for the life of this church as it seeks to be a leader in the Christian
world community."  Should CCM fail, such a vote would place barriers
between the ELCA and its longtime ecumenical partners -- "not only the
Episcopal Church but also the churches of the Anglican communion
throughout the world," the perspective said.
     "Other Lutheran church bodies will welcome the ELCA's assuming its
rightful place among those churches whose ministerial structures reflect
the historic apostolic mission of the gospel," the perspective said.
"They will at last be invited to join in the ordination of the clergy
and the installation of bishops in the ELCA without the impediments they
faced in the past, when visiting Lutheran bishops in the historic
succession were prevented from participating in the laying on of hands
at the installations of our presiding bishops."
     Thirteen present and former ELCA leaders added their endorsements
of CCM to the perspective.
     "I favor full communion because it makes sense both practically
and theologically," said the Rev. Herbert W. Chilstrom, former presiding
bishop of the ELCA. "None of us will win the world for Christ by going
our separate way.  Full communion is a positive, forthright way to tell
the world that our two churches intend to be in mission together."
     Chilstrom specifically addressed the question of the "historic
episcopate," a key point in CCM.  The historic episcopate is an
Episcopal institution, a succession of bishops back to the earliest days
of the Christian church.  If CCM is approved, the ELCA will adopt the
historic episcopate.
     "They (Episcopalians) have only asked us to embrace it as a sign
of the continuity of the gospel through the leadership of our bishops
and as one of the many ways that the Spirit leads the church," Chilstrom
said. "That is fully in keeping with what other Lutherans around the
world have been doing for many generations."
     "By accident of history, many Lutherans (though not all) lost the
historic episcopate," said the Rev. James R. Crumley Jr.,  presiding
bishop of the former Lutheran Church in America. "I believe it is time
to recover it as an appropriate sign of the apostolicity of the church."
     Technical differences and traditional preferences should not
impede the mission of God in the world "or detract us from the rightful
path of ecumenism which we have followed to this point," said the Rev.
Will L. Herzfeld,  presiding bishop of the former Association of
Evangelical Lutheran Churches.
     Two former ELCA synod bishops who opposed the Concordat in 1997
endorsed CCM: the Rev. William Lazareth, former bishop of the ELCA
Metropolitan New York Synod and the Rev. Kenneth H. Sauer, former bishop
of the ELCA Southern Ohio Synod.
     "In my judgment the current text is far more faithful to the
normative authority of the Holy Scriptures as witnessed in the Lutheran
Confessions," Lazareth said.
     "The 'Apology of the Augsburg Confession,' refers to the
traditional form of the historic episcopate as 'the ecclestical and
canonical polity' which was the Reformers 'deep desire to maintain.'
After almost 500 years, that evangelical and catholic wish may now at
last be fulfilled in the ELCA.  Thanks be to God," Lazareth said.
     Sauer, who is now director of the Institute for Mission in the
U.S.A., Columbus, Ohio, said he's talked with many people and read the
CCM materials.  Though he couldn't support the Concordat in 1997, "I now
believe the ELCA can accept CCM without violating its confessional
commitments," Sauer said.
     "I now believe that the ELCA not only CAN adopt CCM, but SHOULD
adopt it with hope and joy," Sauer wrote.
     In a letter to assembly voting members, the Rev. Wayne
Weissenbuehler, Bethany Lutheran Church, Englewood, Colo., said the ELCA
has a chance to show the world that "Christians can overcome historic
impediments to a mutual life of faith and thus eliminate one more excuse
for not taking the gospel we proclaim seriously."  Weissenbuehler is
also former bishop of the ELCA Rocky Mountain Synod.
     "We are not going to let this historic opportunity slip away from
us, are we?" Weissenbuehler asked the voting members.  "I live and work
in the midst of a congregation that would find it strange and wrong if
the assembly would not overwhelmingly pass CCM.  They, like myself, have
come to experience the Episcopal Church as a church in which the gospel
is alive and well and proclaimed in ways that are compatible with
Lutherans."
     Weissenbuehler said he supports CCM because it will "enhance the
mission and witness of the whole church."

For information contact:
John Brooks, Director (773) 380-2958 or NEWS@ELCA.ORG
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